Month: January 2015

Working together with Claire Harrison Photography and DoP Nick Vernon we wanted to create a sparkling and fun beauty test commercial on which we could try some techniques and have a look at some production workflows. We worked with three models to create a loose narrative around getting ready for a night out in London.

Nick was keen to try shooting with the Magic Lantern RAW setting on the Cannon 5D and taking the footage through DaVinci Resolve.

Beata from video

When I spoke to him about the process he said:

Magic Lantern creates .RAW files which can be converted into other formats such as cinemaDNG. Standard Canon 5D files are h264 which is heavily compressed. Using raw gives a higher quality image with much more flexibility in post production.

The shoot itself went extremely well, if a little rushed and we were able to get to all four of our planned locations finishing with a frosty night shoot at Hackney Town Hall. The Art direction and styling from Adelaide Turnbull was incredible and she made sure we were able to get what we needed from each location. Franco Vallelonga, Salina Thind and Megumi Mizuno worked wonders with the hair, make-up and nails respectively and made sure each of the girls Lera, Beth and Beata looked great.

But obviously the shoot wasn’t without its problems:

NV: We only had one compact flash card fast enough to record raw. This meant we couldn’t shoot while we were backing up the files. At one point Magic Lantern wouldn’t load, so the last few shots had to be recorded in h264. The difference between the two formats was very noticeable during grading.

Leara from video

Working in the edit with Claire we had transcoded files taken from the camera originals and chose the prettiest, most compelling shots to tell our story. I always wanted to create a dynamic and urgent feel to the piece so I made sure to always have movement in each shot or moved them in post.

It was important for us to stick to our original brief and work to a ridged thirty second final duration. This absolutely made sure we would squeeze the most we could out of each shot and insist on only using the best content we had.

After a few test screenings we locked the edit and Nick took the cut into Da Vinci Resolve to start grading.

NV:We had to work quickly on the day and this meant that we ended up dimming the Dedolights rather than using ND. As the colour of the light changes when you dim them, extra time was needed in the grade to correct it.Knowing this ahead of time we used a grey card on the shoot to help in post. Overall, I was happy using Magic Lantern and will use it again.

Beth, from camera

White Balanced

Final Graded

A very effective test shoot by my reckoning. As always, a little more time would help but that’s nothing new.

I directed this at FLETCHERWILSON for their friends at TBA, whose client Clarks, wanted a set of five concept films to be shown at the launch event of a new season of footwear.

Brief

Create five beautiful, poetic live action films which will serve as the backdrop for a new season catwalk show. The films should evoke the spirit of each of the five the collections, have a loose narrative flow and cohesive feel.

Creative Approach

We will capture a sense of life, dynamism and humanity by using people in their environments but without featuring recognisable faces. Using macro photography these films will have a sense of drama through the juxtaposition of intricate details and the large scale of the presentation image. We would see soft focus movements in the background with hands, objects or bodies moving through the frame and the focus. This way we will create moving and overlapping abstracts from the details, tones and textures of each scenario.

Each of the vignettes will follow a loose narrative arc that picks out key atmospheric moments, colours, objects and forms on a journey that epitomises the range and look stunning. The shots within each vignette will be long, slow and considered allowing the images, colours, tone, mood and atmosphere to work for the audience complimenting the light, sound and staged layers of the live production.

Creative Approach Technical

By using hand-held, tracking-shots and obscure angles as well as shooting in close ups, extreme close ups and almost abstract macro we will create a strong feeling of understanding, intimacy and affinity for the audience with the mood and tone of each range.

Another layer of texture we will add in the shoot is using rare uncoated vintage lenses. These lenses have a strong analog look that includes interesting visual artifacts like lense flares and atmospheric aberrations but keep luscious, warm skin tones, smooth contrast and combine beautiful blend of sharpness and softness.

The editing style will follow the considered and measured approach and use composed dissolves that marry shot into shot in a dream like fashion that makes use of the super wide screen.

No small task.

I was really excited to be working with FW and TBA again for this prestigious brand. I think these pictures show the creative fun we had making films that would evoke the mood, tone and feeling of each footwear collection.

Here are some photos that document the job

We used an uncoated prime set from Genesis hire for lovely flares, artefacts and optical aberrations.

D.O.P Don McVey working some magic with the very effective 100mm macro lens on the Sony FS700. Kat from FW officially had the best handwriting.

“But what about some snow Rob?”

“No problem

Trick of the trade: I find the inside of a cheap duvet has a really convincing look of fresh snow when used in the background. (Kat was not convinced)

I’ve been sliding around London for some time, with a macro lens. We got some amazing footage on this desk.

Tip 2: We used a strong backlight on this set up to highlight talc particles in the atmosphere.

Amongst other places, we went to Baba’s forest for some authentic woodland texture.

It was a great location that offered so many shots. I could have been there all day.

Last shot of the day. Cordial and tap water

We cut and graded all five films in Adobe Creative Cloud at a 5:1 aspect ratio… But that’s another story.